


A Word of Caution

by Wanderbird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Oneshot, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 21:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17906048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: When Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban, the only thought in his head is protecting Harry. But what does he do, when he finds himself in a great wide world and no way of finding his long-lost godson?He goes looking for help.Well, not so much "looking for help" as "lurching blankly and without conscious intervention to the one soul he can't quite help but trust". And frankly, Remus Lupin is far from pleased to see him.





	A Word of Caution

Remus didn’t scream. He was actually quite proud of that fact, in hindsight—after all, screaming was an altogether sensible course of action when you walk into your flat to find the sight before him, and depending on what else he might have done, things might have turned out very differently.

 

As it was, Remus strolled into his flat on the twenty-second of June, 1992 to find a particular, intimately familiar dog collapsed on the floor of his living room. His wand was in his hand almost immediately—but the dog didn’t even twitch. Remus pursed his lips. Closed the door. Odd, he couldn’t help but note, how worryingly thin that silhouette appeared, how patchy and uneven that hair lay upon his skin.  
“Change- change back.” He cleared his throat. Sirius. Sirius _Black,_ he supposed he really ought to append that surname again now that it was clear the man had inherited his family’s evil. “Change back, before I call the Aurors and let them handle it, because I don’t know what you’re doing in my home but you will find no succor here, Black.”  
The transformation was slow, this time. Halting. Fur peeled away to reveal flesh and clothing, limbs sank from their sockets into new positions, claws lengthened into blunt, ragged fingertips. Remus clutched his wand ever tighter, but—nothing.

        The man that curled on the harsh linoleum bore very little resemblance to the Sirius he once knew. He was dirty, emaciated, hair hanging limp and sparse from his head. Remus could see the imprint of ribs and bone even through the oversized tunic, regardless of the holes scattered across its surface, and his eyes—those eyes were glazed over, absent as one long dead, and the sight of them gave him chills. Not nearly so badly as the chills which wracked the ~~man~~ murderer, though, not if the way his whole body quaked beneath the air was any indication.  
“Why are you here?” Those words were cold. Quiet. Remus waited for the answer, but Sirius didn’t even seem to hear. “WHY ARE YOU HERE!?”  
        That seemed to startle him into action. Sirius moved his mouth, briefly, as if trying and failing to say something. “H… Harry,” barely even a whisper, hoarse from what Remus presumed was dehydration. “I need to find Harry.”  
“You won’t find him here.” Remus felt his heart seize up all over again. Five years, and still he hadn’t gotten over their deaths, not really. “Unlike some people, I keep my promises to my friends.” And yet—no. Absolutely not, he could grieve over his loss of Sirius some other time, not when the maniac himself was here to listen. “Why me? Dumbledore was the one who found the boy, if there’s a Fidelius charm involved, I’m not the secret-keeper. Why did you find _me_?”  
Sirius frowned, finally a change from that blank exhaustion. “I don’t remember.”  
He didn’t—how could he _not remember?_  
“I don’t remember a lot of things.”  
Remus took a deep breath. Fine. One more question, and he would, he would call the aurors. Moody, maybe, just in case Sirius did still have a fair amount of fight left in him. “Give me one good reason.” Remus paused. “One good reason to leave you free, or I’ll turn you in to Azkaban.”

 _That_ seemed to get him moving. In mere seconds, Sirius was up on his knees, scrambling to face him. “No, please,” wait “please no, Remus, not Azkaban, don’t ever put me back there I would rather die” was he, was Sirius Black actually—begging? “Just kill me. Please, I’m, please, I’ll do it myself, I’ll—”  
Too close. “Get off me.”  
Those words were all it took, and Sirius fell immediately back, kneeling with his cheek pressed to his fists along the cold floor. Remus continued. “Give me one good reason not to turn you in. Trust me, the feelings of a murderer are hardly a good reason, I would gladly see you suffer for your crimes.” Dear god, he hated this. Finally—  
“It wasn’t me.”  
Of course. Trying to get out of it out of, out of some kind of desperation—  
“Peter was their secret-keeper.”

  
That… Remus stared. That was not… impossible. “You killed Peter.” They’d tossed around the idea of switching out who was secret-keeper at the last second. Remus thought they’d discarded it on the grounds that it would have to be either Peter or Sirius anyway, since the whole werewolf thing rather restricted the choices. But if they’d switched anyway, after that, they hardly would have told him.  
“Peter fled. I failed to catch him.”  
If Peter had taken animagus form… and that would explain why when they’d found him, Sirius had been so hysterical, so eager to strangle his former friend with those bare and bloody hands. Remus hesitated. At last, he came to a decision. “Stay exactly where you are.” Sirius nodded. “Move so much as an inch from your current position, and I _will_ knock you out and call the aurors.” Remus kept his wand trained on the man for as long as he could, sidling across the room to his potions cabinet. Veritaserum, he had to have some, he always kept a little vial on hand for whenever he picked up a job that seemed more than a bit shady, whether among Muggles or wizards. At last he found the vial. Half full. It would have to do. Honestly, Remus thought, with anybody else this would be enough to make them spout truth for the rest of the day, but… he could hardly afford to take chances on this. An Occlumens could still get around it, of course, but while Remus was positively abysmal at Occlumency, he was at least good enough at the reverse to know that Sirius was only slightly more skilled. Enough to beat a quick and inexperienced glance, perhaps, from a Legilimens. Not nearly good enough to beat truth serum. Remus poured the entire half vial into a glass alongside a sip or so of water. When he turned back around, sure enough, Sirius hadn’t budged.  
“Here.” Remus crouched before his old friend, the glass in one hand, his wand gripped firm in the other. “Drink.” It was a good thing he was holding the glass, because Sirius’s fingers still shook so badly he likely would have spilled it all across his own face. The criminal swallowed.   
“Now,” Remus bit down on the inside of his cheek. No use feeling pity when Sirius was probably just lying through his teeth, he had to remind himself. “Tell me everything that happened from Halloween until you were sent to prison.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> ... I may have gotten more invested in this than I intended. Welp.  
> Thanks for reading!  
> -Ent


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